Thursday’s Child: A Miscellany of Museums

I’ve been writing about some of my favourite museum experiences this month.This week, I’ll mention three others that I’ve visited.None of them merit a whole post, but they each stand out for one reason:

– The least likely museum we’ve ever seen was the Marzipan Museum in Talinn, Estonia. Did you know that Talinn was the birthplace of marzipan? Or that there was a whole (if tiny) museum devoted to it? Before this trip I didn’t, but one look at the fabulous creations in this tiny basement museum made me realize what I’d been missing. I’ll never look at Shrek in the same way again.

– The Alte Pinakothek in Munich was the only museum we’ve visited where we set off an alarm by being too close to a painting. A security guard was on top of us immediately, but the sight of eleven-year old tears convinced him that it was an innocent accident. He issued a very kind warning, and in the seven years since then, we have never set off another alarm.

– Visiting the Prado museum in Madrid marked my height of organizational and parenting skills. I couldn’t visit Madrid without seeing the Prado, but I knew it would be a tough sell for the girls. So I told them they’d each be an expert on a Spanish painter of their choice. My youngest daughter bought into this when I told her she could do her research on-line, especially when I agreed that she could design a brochure too. She took her expert designation seriously; I’m not exaggerating when I say that we didn’t leave the Prado until we had seen every single Goya on display. (And every Father’s Day, the girls give Andrew a copy of Goya’s masterpiece, “Saturno Devouring his Children”, with great amusement.)

Our kids always get museum burnout on our trips…we try to fit in as many activities as we can each day. I think they're grateful in the end that they've experienced so much. I love how creative you were in selling the Prado Museum 🙂

Beth, what a wonderful post about these three museums. I must say that I am impressed with all the different places you visited. Estonia, Germany (next time you visit that country, do let me know!) and Spain – I have never been most of the places that you mentioned and I love the way you tell nice stories about each of them!